China’s Manifest Destiny

Legendary scenes of determined settlers bravely moving west in a journey to fulfill America’s “Manifest Destiny” are being quietly resurrected. Only this time, Chinese migrants, not American settlers, are driving west into the cold, forbidding environment of the Russian Far East and Siberia.

Russia possesses the world’s largest proven reserves of natural gas and is the second largest oil producer behind only Saudi Arabia with Siberia holding the overwhelmingly majority of these strategic reserves. The Siberian region possesses 80 percent of Russia’s oil; 85 percent of its natural gas; 80 percent of its coal and 40 percent of its timber. Adding to the region’s importance, valuable raw materials such as nickel, zinc, cooper, aluminum, ores, and mercury are plentiful throughout the Russian Far East and Siberia.